And so Jackass 5 was a hell of a lot of fun. I’m not sure it’s quite what we had in mind when we decided that Monday afternoons would be cultural afternoons at Colchester Odeon - and yes I do realise that an afternoon of culture in the Colchester Odeon is something of a misnomer.
I’ve always liked Jackass. It’s dumb as fuck. I’m still not convinced that it’s all genuine. Is wrestling fixed, etc. Certainly parts of Jackass 5 felt like the returning old faces were playing to the camera with maybe a little bit of a safety net already in place.
There’s not quite enough new content either to pad out an entire film. The incredibly good-looking Johnny Knoxville has declared that this is the last ever Jackass movie. The incredibly good-looking Johnny Knoxville always declares that each Jackass is the last movie.
And so Jackass 5 is used as an opportunity to reflect on what’s taken place before. I’m not sure what the exact ratio is but there is a fair amount of old pranks dropped in to the schedule.
This actually adds a little depth to the film. I would place it along a similar theme as Trainspotting 2 or even Spinal Tap 2. It’s a bit of a love letter, a film where the narrative is more than a passing thought about the passage of time.
The Jackass dudes are all hitting 50 plus. They are too old to have their bollocks being smashed full-on by a mallet. This would seem like a suitable time to bow out.
Poo jokes feature heavily. They are taken to an extreme and do cause you to actually wince and look away throughout some of the film.
Elsewhere and the new character, Larry the AI robot, comes close to stealing the show. I can’t help think that an AI robot rectal examination is the future.
Knoxville and the boys have seen a huge transformation in the way they go about putting across their message. What initially started off as their own private video pranks soon became an MTV phenomenon. MTV in itself was pretty much killed off with the modern interweb.
Now all you have to do is scroll through your stupid phone at some dumbass TikTok videos and you have your own Jackass curated experience. The modern interweb is full of dumb shits who want to make a fool of themselves in public.
Knoxville however is something of a camera star. I love the way that he sets his buddies up and yet is rarely at the butt of his own jokes. Spoiler alert: he does take one for the team in Jackass 5 with a very randy ball that involves an ambulance towards the end scenes.
We didn’t exactly find high culture in the Sunny Colch Odeon on Monday afternoon. Thankfully we also didn’t find an audience that was so impolite that they spoke shit all the way throughout. Jackass tends to attract a different kind of audience, natch.
We had something of our own Jackass experience as we headed upstairs briefly for a visit to the toilets. The Sunny Colch Odeon escalator has Jackass embedded within it. It moves incredibly slowly until you step on it and then it goes into fast forward.
Hi, my name is Jase and you’re watching Jackass on the Escalator.